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Ed Schuller

American musician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ1282491
Source-derived summary

Edwin Gunther Schuller (January 11, 1955) is an American jazz bassist and composer. His father is Gunther Schuller, a composer, horn player, and music professor, and his younger brother is drummer George Schuller.

Career

A native of New York City, Schuller learned clarinet and guitar as a child. He switched to double bass at age 15, and the same year he had his first professional appearances with Ricky Ford. He studied at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Schuller has played with Lee Konitz, Joe Lovano, Ted Curson, Dave Liebman, Abbey Rader, Jimmy Knepper, Clark Terry, Ran Blake, Paul McCandless, Billy Hart, Mat Maneri, Marty Ehrlich, and Roland Hanna, and has toured with Lovano, Paul Motian, Tim Berne, Jim Pepper, Pat Martino, Mal Waldron, Uli Lenz, Karl Berger, Gerry Hemingway, Marty Cook, Nicolas Simian, Perry Robinson, Barry Miles, Terry Silverlight, and Jaki Byard. He has played on over 60 recordings and been a member of numerous collective ensembles, including the ensemble that recorded Charles Mingus's Epitaph in 1990.

Schuller has taught at the Newark Academy and at Berklee College of Music, and was the head of the jazz department at Schweitzer Institute of Music in Idaho from 1988.

Discography

As leader

Conspiracy (EmArcy, 1983)

The Eleventh Hour (Enja/Tutu, 1993)

To Know Where One Is (GM, 1995)

Mu-Point (Tutu, 1996)

Snake Dancing (Tutu, 1996)

Force (Tutu, 1996)

Art of the Duo (Tutu, 2001)

Ong Song: Music for Acoustic Bass (GM, 2002)

As It Grows (Hathut, 2004)

As sideman

With Franco Ambrosetti

Music for Symphony and Jazz Band (Enja, 1991)

With Tim Berne

Spectres (Empire, 1981)

Songs and Rituals in Real Time, Empire, 1982)

The Ancestors (Soul Note, 1983)

Mutant Variations (Soul Note, 1984)

With Anat Fort

A Long Story (ECM, 2007)

With Paul Grabowsky

Tales of Time and Space (Sanctuary, 2005)

With Russ Lossing

Dreamer (Double-Time, 2000)

As It Grows (HatOLOGY, 2002)

With Uli Lenz

Echoes of Mandela (Tutu, 1997)

Good-bye Venus (Tutu, 2007)

With Joe Lovano

Rush Hour (Blue Note, 1994)

With Joe Maneri

Tenderly (hatOLOGY, 1993 [1999])

Coming Down the Mountain (hatOLOGY, 1993 [1997])

With Paul Motian

Psalm (ECM, 1982)

The Story of Maryam (Soul Note, 1984)

Jack of Clubs (Soul Note, 1985)

Misterioso (Soul Note, 1987)

With Night Ark

Treasures (Traditional Crossroads, 2000)

With Jim Pepper

Comin' and Goin' (Europa, 1983)

With Herb Robertson

Certified (JMT, 1991)

With Mal Waldron

Mal, Dance and Soul (Tutu, 1988)

Quadrologue at Utopia (Tutu, 1989)

More Git' Go at Utopia (Tutu, 1989)

Mal, Verve, Black & Blue (Tutu, 1994)

With Tom Varner

Motion/Stillness (Soul Note, 1982)

References

Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler, The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford, 1999, pp.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ed Schuller” as american musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Schuller, American and musician.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1990, 1988, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-11-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Schuller, American and musician providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ed Schuller”, the useful work is to connect “american musician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1282491. VIAF identifies the subject as 34649322. The Library of Congress control number is n82113498. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1990, 1988 and 1983.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ed Schuller”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ed Schuller primary sources, Ed Schuller archive and Schuller research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Ed Schuller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.